In another forum, the Filioque was discussed, and I thank whoever sent that website on +Zizioulas' assessment on the RC belief of the Filioque.

This question goes out to the RC's. Just as there was a clarification on the Filioque, is there a clarification on the idea that the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son?

Some of the many questions I like answered in this clarification is, What does this imply or help us understand about the Holy Spirit? Does it reduce Him to a simple force? Is the idea that the Holy Spirit as a bond of love make the Holy Spirit not capable of having a bond of love between the Father or the Son, but simply is just the love utilized by the Father and the Son to each other? In other words, what is the bond of love between the Father and the Holy Spirit or the Son and the Holy Spirit if there exists any?

In addition, if there are examples by common Holy Fathers as well as Latin Fathers that can reaffirm this clarification, I would love to read them.

Explain to me as an Orthodox a clarification that answers the typical Orthodox skeptic and polemic against the alleged "differences" of the understanding of the Trinity between Orthodox and Catholics.

Sorry for the loaded question, but you don't have to answer every single one. I'm just an idealist and I always strive for perfection

God bless.

« Last Edit: November 14, 2007, 02:03:19 AM by minasoliman »

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Vain existence can never exist, for "unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain." (Psalm 127)

If the faith is unchanged and rock solid, then the gates of Hades never prevailed in the end.

God the Father, in His infinite love, pours out that love entirely and begets the Son. The Son in His love perfectly mirrors the Father and gives that entirety back to the Father. And this eternal back and forth of love, a love that is so palpable that it is a person (not merely a force), too - the Holy Spirit.

And so we have the Lover, the Beloved, and Love. The Trinity is a family of love.

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Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.

Pray that we may be one, as Christ and His Father are one. (John 17:20ff)

What is this Trinitarian character that the person of the Holy Spirit brings to the very relationship between the Father and the Son? It is the original role of the Spirit in the economy with regard to the mission and work of the Son. The Father is love in is source (2 Cor 13:13; 1 Jn 4:8.16), the Son is "the Son that he loves" (Col 1:14). So a tradition dating back to St Augustine has seen in the Holy Spirit, through whom "God's love has been poured into our hearts" (Rom 5:5), love as the eternal Gift of the Father to his "beloved Son" (Mk 1:11, 9:7; Lk 20:13; Eph 1:6).11

The divine love which has its origin in the Father reposes in "the Son of his love" in order to exist consubstantially through the Son in the person of the Spirit, the Gift of love. This takes into account the fact that, through love, the Holy Spirit orients the whole life of Jesus towards the Father in the fulfilment of his will. The Father sends his Son (Gal 4:4) when Mary conceives him through the operation of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35). The Holy Spirit makes Jesus manifest as Son of the Father by resting upon him at baptism (cf. Lk 3:21-22; Jn 1:33). He drives Jesus into the wilderness (cf. Mk 1:12). Jesus returns ("full of the Holy Spirit" (Lk 4:1). Then he begins his ministry "in the power of the Spirit" (Lk 4:14). He is filled with joy in the Spirit, blessing the Father for his gracious will (cf. Lk 10:21). He chooses his apostles "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2). He casts out demons by the Spirit of God (Mt 12:28). He offers himself to the Father "through the eternal Spirit" (Heb 9:14). On the Cross he "commits his Spirit" into the Father's hands (Lk 23:46). "In the Spirit" he descended to the dead (cf. 1 Pet 3:19), and by the Spirit he was raised from the dead (cf. Rom 8:11) and "designated Son of God in power" (Rom 1:4).12 This role of the Spirit in the innermost human existence of the Son of God made man derives from an eternal Trinitarian relationship through which the Spirit, in his mystery as Gift of Love, characterises the relation between the Father, as source of love, and his beloved Son.

The original character of the person of the Spirit as eternal Gift of the Father's love for his beloved Son shows that the Spirit, while coming from the Son in his mission, is the one who brings human beings into Christ's filial relationship to his Father, for this relationship finds only in him its Trinitarian character: "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba!Father!" (Gal 4:6). In the mystery of salvation and in the life of the church, the Spirit, therefore, does much more than prolong the work of the Son. In fact, whatever Christ has instituted — Revelation, the church, the sacraments, the apostolic ministry, and its magisterium — calls for constant invocation (epiclesis) of the Holy Spirit and his action (energeia), so that the love that "never ends" (1 Cor 13:8 ) may be made manifest in the communion of the saints with the life of the Trinity.

Notes:[11] St. Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine, writes: "If we say of the Holy Spirit that he dwells in the Son, it is in the way that the love of one who loves reposes in the loved one" (Summa Theologica Ia, q.36, a.2, 4um). This doctrine of the Holy Spirit as love has been harmoniously assumed by St. Gregory Palamas into the Greek theology of the ekporeusis from the Father alone: "The Spirit of the most high Word is like an ineffable love of the Father for this Word ineffably generated. A love which this same Word and beloved Son of the Father entertains (chretai) towards the Father: but insofar as he has the Spirit coming with him (sunproelthonta) from the Father and reposing connaturally in him" (Capita physica XXXVI, PG 150, 1144, D-1145 A).

Wasn't the Filioque a mistake made in one church in translation and they just kept it?

One of the key differences is the language barrier where the words in Latin and Greek don't convey the same meaning. But, I posted from the Clarification not to debate the Filioque (that's for another thread - or 50 ), but because I knew that it presented this expression of love.

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Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.

Pray that we may be one, as Christ and His Father are one. (John 17:20ff)